Article #21 on Salvation
“If ye love me, keep My commandments.” - John 14:15
Do you love God? If you love God, then you will keep His commandments. That’s a Biblical fact! You cannot say that you love God while disobeying His commandments. “For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous.” (1John 5:3). God is sinless. If you love God, then you hate sin. You wouldn’t take pleasure in it! You would utterly detest it. One can only love God in proportion to how much he hates sin. Forget every other contrary definition of Christianity you have ever learned. For, without real obedience to God, your profession of Christianity means absolutely nothing in light of eternity. “They profess that they know God; but in works they deny him, being abominable, and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate.” (Titus 1:16).
Do you have a relationship with God? Most people would confidently say, “Yes!”, only because they feel it to be true in their own heart. Or maybe they had some kind of spiritual experience once upon a time. However, Jeremiah the prophet warned against this, saying, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jer. 17:9). A true relationship with God changes your relationship with sin. The only way to be absolutely sure that you have come to know God through a personal relationship is if you keep the commandments of Jesus Christ. “And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments. He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.” (1 John 2:3-4). Jesus Christ, the LORD, isn’t looking for pretty words, long prayers, and roaring praises, as much as He is looking for sincere love from the heart that produces obedience to the Word.
Do you have a relationship with the Word of God? You cannot have a relationship with God without knowing and keeping His word. This is a personal matter for God. Jesus Christ is “the Word” (John 1:1-3). If you don’t have a glorious relationship with the Bible, which is the written Word of God, then you are practicing Christianity without Christ. According to the Messiah, this is your condemnation: “My Word hath no place in you” (John 8:37). Don’t let this be said of you! “But be ye doers of the Word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.” (James 1:22). The freedom that is to be found in Christ comes through the word. “Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” (John 8:31-32; John 8:47).
Do you love the world? Most people grow up and mature in life by learning the ways of the world (Eph. 2:2, 1 John 4:5). They work hard and try to find success so that they can live with pride. So, they end up walking, talking, dressing, and acting just like the world around them (Prov. 14:12). However, this is the broad path that leads to destruction that Jesus was talking about in Matt. 7:13-14. For, the world is at war against God. The human race is fallen (Romans 8:6-8)! The world around you is a threat to your eternal soul (John 15:18-21). If you are befriended by it, then you are taking sides against God as an enemy of Heaven. “Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.” (James 4:4). Can you believe it? A true relationship with God changes your relationship with the world. All those that are truly born of God overcome the world (1 John 5:10)!
| “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.” - 1Jn 2:15-17 |
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